YouTube, Content ID, and Montetization

During the last few weeks, there have been a lot of discussions about YouTube and the hot topic lately has been policies about posting to YouTube video content that contains videogame assets. This situation is continuing to develop and we’ll be monitoring YouTube changes, but we’d like to provide some clarification on the matter of our policies.

To use assets (e.g., screenshots, footage) from our games, any content creator needs to comply with the Guild Wars 2 Terms of Use that are detailed here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-content-terms-of-use/. These rules are pretty explicit and haven’t changed since we put them together. They define what content ArenaNet considers out of line. Content creators are not permitted to use our assets to create a commercial product and use of our assets for non-commercial purposes is permitted. Monetizing a fan-created Guild Wars 2 video on YouTube via its partner program is generally not against these Content Terms of Use, just as serving advertising (Google Ads, for instance) on a fansite is not against the Content Terms of Use.

We actually support people sharing their experiences with our game, such as Let’s Play, guides, reviews, or other types of fan videos on YouTube. We generally do not take any action against YouTube videos using our game assets. We will investigate what’s happening with the PlayNC claims. You can contact us at community@arena.net if you have further questions. We’re also going to start reviewing our policies to make sure they’re clear on where we stand regarding content creation. Keep in mind that this will take quite some time since it involves legal reviews.

Thanks a lot for supporting the Guild Wars 2 community by creating awesome content to show your experiences with the game!